He's total-wrecked three, blew up the transmission in one of my Vettes, lost his license for a year...twice.

SO, I did the logical thing any parent would do,  I bought my son, Zach another car this past week...a new 2009 Chevy Cobalt SS.What blew my mind was the fact the dealership was covered up, at least 15 sets of customers on the lot...on a Sunday afternoon in Atlanta.

Then, I performed an in-store consulting visit for three dealerships in Michigan last week. (in December, what was I thinkng?) We're talking multi-franchises... Toyota, Chrysler-Dodge, and Hyundai. Once again, business is really getting better.

It's not uncommon for me to talk on the phone or email with a hundred car people a week. The message coming from many directions seems to be, as I predicted against the grain in recent speeches and magazine articles, that; business is coming back now with the bailout assured and financing loosening up. There is a lot of pent up demand and I believe, by March, as I have said all along...business will be popping again. Maybe not where it was when we were pumping out 17 million new and 43 million used...BUT...respectable levels will return.

It's been a dark period for the industry BUT I feel it's also been a cleansing. I hated to see so many dealers go out of business and disappear BUT; once again; I believe a thinning of the herd was necessary. There were too many dealers for demand. Hated to see old friends disappear, but it had to be that way.

AND, we all learned how to sell again. All of us became complacent when it was automatic... For years Honda and Toyota Sales were "Stupid-Proof".  In many cases a Monkey with a note in his mouth could stand out in the middle of a Honda lot and deliver 12 units. NOW, it's a struggle again and it sharpened our skills of finesse and persuation and follow-up.

Now, General Motors and Ford and, perhaps Chrysler, are re-visting the idea of subvented leasing programs. (Bad idea for them but great for the dealers)

My Sales manager Seminars and F&I Seminars are seeing a lot of new blood again, and dealers seem to be more optimistic than previously in October, November, and December. Is business back?

Here's the thread for comment...

Do you see it getting better?

What transformations do you forsee realistically?

In general, what comments would you like to add here?

JIM

There's so much fluff and fantasy out there today about what practices work...or do not work in the real world with real customers. There are some people who are really making sales and income from web-based sales...and ...there are some delusionary propeller-heads making claims that their numbers can't justify.

A major paradigm shift, nothing is ever going to be as it was before...get over it.

...trying to explain it to one of my friends in Great Britain last week...she said to me, "Sounds like you're really having a time of it Jim. I believe you're living your next book."

Car sales are not automatic any more...you've actually got to have some talent and people skills. There was a time when Honda and Toyota Sales were relatively stupid-proof. A monkey with a note in his mouth could stand in the center of the lot and deliver 10 units.

As a speaker, trainer and consultant to the retail automobile business; we've had to dramatically change the way we do business with car dealers.  http://www.ZieglerTV.com is one example of 'new thinking'.

In my travels, I interact with thousands of sales professionals, managers, and dealers on a regular basis. The truth of the matter is...we've forgotten how to sell cars. AND, technology isn't going to sell the cars, it's only going to hook you up with the prospects and educate them. There still has got to be an element of sales persuasion to convert the contact into the appointment that actually shows up. In other words, a techo-geek with no personality is going to waste a lot of opportunities trying to sell cars intellectually.

Down payment is still the key to profitability...and...as an industry, we've become a bunch of weak sucks when it comes to asking for the money. The average dealership posts less than two-hundred-fifty dollars real cash down per financed deal. Of course the banks were financing 170% of invoice so you had the luxury of being weak.

Leasing was so easy it created a generation of order-takers who forgot how to sell and persuade.

And the entire industry developed a 'bogue' mentality. If a real citizen with great credit showed up we were scrambling for the invoice because we no longer knew how to deal with customers with good credit.

My "prospecting' classes are overflowing because we've forgotten how to reach out in the community and generate our own business.

NOW, it appears the party's over and there are casualties strewn all over the landscape. I had two sales person seminars in Detroit in November with more than 125 in attendance at each one. More than half of the audience had been selling for more than ten years...experienced sales professionals. That never was the case in the past. How come? Because they had become so comfortable they forgot the raw basics of automobile sales and were wise enough to reinvent themselves, back to the future so-to-speak.

SO...here's the question.

What have you done during the current economic crisis and credit crunch to reinvent the way you do business. What has your dealership done differently? What's working for you...best practices? What doesn't work anymore?